When Dean Nelson, the vice president responsible for provisioning and consolidating EBay’s (EBAY) data centers, evaluated Utah as a site for EBay’s next mega-data-center project, he was mostly happy. It offered tax incentives, low latency for serving EBay’s customers, and the right workforce. But for one problem: “There was a challenge around getting clean power,” says Nelson. Utah has less than 3 percent renewable energy and generates 82 percent of its power from coal, according to data from 2009 provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

If there’s any country where solar power should be an easy sell, it’s India. Two-thirds of the country’s power supply comes from fossil fuels, and power producers can’t get enough coal to fire their plants or enough pipeline space to distribute natural gas. In late July, blackouts over two days left much of northern India in the dark, at one point cutting power to more than 640 million people. Even at the best of times the network fails to serve much of India. The July blackouts lasted “only for a couple of days but 400 million Indians have never had electricity,” says H Harish Hande, managing director of Selco Solar, a Bangalore-based company that focuses on expanding solar power use among the rural poor.

Apple Inc , targeted by Greenpeace International over its energy consumption, said its 500,000- square-foot data center in Maiden, North Carolina, will be powered entirely by renewable sources by the end of the year. The move, announced today on Apple’s website, follows a week of protests at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. Greenpeace demonstrators criticized the world’s largest technology company for using too much coal to power the data facility. Apple reiterated its plan t

On the southwestern tip of Iceland, housed in a former NATO air base, a new $700 million data center is waiting to host the world’s information. Tapping into a ready supply of geothermal energy and cool temperatures, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, a former banker and the country’s first billionaire, is trying to capture a slice of a rapidly growing market: green data centers. Investment in energy efficient server farms will climb to $41 billion by 2015, according to Pike Research. “Iceland happens to be a rare spot on the earth where there is a convergence of attributes that tick all the boxes,” says Jeff Monroe, chief executive officer of Verne Global, Björgólfsson’s venture. “You have 100 percent renewable energy. We can do 100 percent free cooling.”

Renewable energy companies are losing their allure with top executives after profits and stock prices collapsed across the industry, making it more difficult for boards to replace underperforming managers. First Solar Inc., the biggest U.S. solar company, ousted its chief executive officer in October and is still seeking a replacement. At Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the largest turbine maker, the chairman and finance director are leaving after the company cut sales forecasts twice in three months, and CEO Ditlev Engel said his own job is safe.